James Study - Session 2

This session began with a video which can be viewed by clicking this link:

 http://www.sermonspice.com/product/29943/thoughts-on-prejudice

In contrast to this parady – James has this to say:

2 My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? ² For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³ and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” ⁴ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? ⁷ Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

⁸ You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁹ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

James is talking about a wide range of sins –

The video calls it prejudice.

He calls it partiality. 

We can call it discrimination.

Racism.

Being a snob.

            If I go somewhere and wear a suit and tie, I find that I can get waited on in a store a little quicker than if I wear baggy jeans and an old worn out shirt – with the exception of Lowes or Home Depot where the customers are always dressed like they are in the middle of a project.

            On the other hand, in my last church I could never wear a suit.  Ever.  We worked with so many tourists, vacationers, and homeless people that a suit became an impediment to ministry with them.  The first funeral I did in my last church was for a homeless man who had fallen asleep on the beach one night.  He had probably been drunk, because when the tide came in, he drowned.  This sadly happened all too often.  When I showed up for the funeral at the church, I asked the volunteers who worked with the homeless in our programs about what I should wear – I had a suit and tie on.  They asked me to change into blue jeans and a shirt with a church logo. 

            In my mind, wearing a suit was an act of respect.  In the minds of the homeless who came to the funeral, my wearing a suit would have been an act of disrespect, because they would think I was saying, “I’m better than you.”

            In God’s eyes, none of us are better than anyone else.  We are all equal in the eyes of God.

           In fact, that recalls a phrase that is deeply ingrained in American culture. 




Where do these words come from?

The Declaration of Independence.  They also show up in the Gettysburg Address, when Lincoln said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”

And they appeared a few decades ago when Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave his great “I Have A Dream Speech.” 

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'”

The idea of this equality goes back to the Bible.  There were slaves in the Bible.  There were people who were rich and poor.  Visibly, the world of the Bible was always a scene of inequality.  

But underlying that was the call of God to love all people equally.  To treat all people with respect.
 

“God does not show favoritism.”  Romans 2:11

 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality
 Deuteronomy 10:16-17

(God) shows no partiality to princes
and does not favor the rich over the poor… Job 34:19

As for those who seemed to be important — whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance. Galatians 2:6

James 2:1
My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism.

So how do we show favoritism?
You are an employer.  One of your part time people needs to have surgery, and even though the personnel handbook says part time people do not receive sick leave, you grant paid sick leave to this person.  Is that favoritism?  The law would say yes.  Why give it to one part time person and not another?  Because one person is single and other is married?  Because one has been there longer than the other?  Because one is better dressed than the other? 

There is a Youtube video that shows one of the great violinists of our age playing in a Washington DC subway station.  Joshua Bell plays as hundreds of people pass him by.  A few will toss in a coin or two.  ONE person stops and enjoys the concert – free concert.  She recognized him because a few weeks earlier she had paid $250 for a ticket to sit in a concert hall and listen to him play.  Now she is 10 feet away enjoying a free concert.  Everyone else walks by because they see a man dressed like a bum, playing a violin in a subway station.

No one wins when we show favoritism.

How many have seen the movie, “Pursuit of Happyness?”    In it a homeless man, who is a single father of a young boy, struggles to get a job.  He begs for a job interview day after day, and finally gets it – and this is what happens when he gets the interview – AND what happens at the end of the movie.

CLICK TO SEE CLIP
 

Contrast this clip to another scene in the movies.  In the film "Catch Me If You Can," a father dresses his teenage son in a suit and has him drive his car to the bank.  He instructs his son to open the car for him and to stand at the car until he returns.  His son asks why he's doing this, and the father says he is going into the bank to get a loan, and that appearing to have money will help him get money.  The son doesn't understand.  The father asks his son, "Do you know why the New York Yankees always win?"

The son suggests, "Because they have Mickey Mantle?"

"No son, it's the pinstripes.  The other team can't see anything but those pinstripes."

When we fall into the sin of prejudice or favoritism, we not only hurt the other person, but hurt ourselves by depriving ourselves of good workers (as could have been the case in Pursuit of Happyness), or we fall victim to scams as in the case of the loan officer in Catch Me If You Can.

James keeps going and he shifts gears a bit.

This is where we move into the faith without works is dead issue.  This is what many people struggle with in James because we are saved by grace, not by works, but James is insistent that we work.

That seems in contrast with other Scripture.

Romans 3:28

A person is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

But let’s take a look at how this appears from the point of view of the non-Christian.  People who are outside of the church are looking at us, and they know all about this business that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, and they are not impressed by us – because we have faith – but not works.

I want to show you a video – I had to edit it because it is a very offensive video.  And it is by someone that I find personally offensive.  But occasionally, this non Christian who speaks frequently with hatred toward Christians gets it right.

James would love what this guy is saying – because I think James is telling us the same thing.  We either love our neighbor and DO the word, or we don’t.  We are either followers or fans.  There is a difference.

The Bible agrees!

Romans 3:28

A person is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Romans 2:6

God will give to each person according to what he has done. 

1 John 3:10
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

Matthew 7:21-22

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Titus 1:16
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

This session closed with a video which can be viewed by clicking this link: 


http://www.sermonspice.com/product/1412/faith-without-works